It’s not just creepy. It’s part of the evil that Google is now chartered to do.
See, when they put that thing together, they may have forgotten how evil is almost always done in the US: under cover of saying what’s being done is not evil. We have an entire political party/movement based around it now. The problem is that capital itself is evil, and so is the pursuit of power. even if once power and capital are attained they are used for good (relatively speaking). you can’t get there from here. Of course Google is a monopoly. And of course they will do everything in their power to defend their fundamentally evil (and fundamentally like every other evil concentration of capital) practices. Where is the history of discussion of “how big should Google get?” and the related, “how can we not maximize profit under contemporary rules of corporate governance”? It is a real paradox. I don’t blame them. I don’t see the solution. but the problem is as big as can be.
Reject every offer to join google+. If it was possible to explain why in layman’s terms, the software wouldn’t be worth the billions of dollars it is. You and I do not understand what it is for and what they are doing with it. Period. And don’t tell me you do. You don’t.
Google+ Is Everywhere–It’s Creepy
By Tony Bradley, PCWorld Jul 2, 2011 6:11 AM
Joining any social network introduces a balancing act of sharing versus privacy. Is Google testing these limits? Going back to when I joined Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn life online was different. None of these services took over my online life in the same way Google+ has. Google has its Google+ tentacles wrapped around many popular Google services.
On one level, the integration of Google+ with the rest of the Google-verse is a benefit for the social network. But, on another level it is sort of creepy and difficult to manage.
Once you join Google+, it is instantaneously ubiquitous. Go to Gmail, and there it is–that ‘+Tony’ at the upper left on the menu of links with the other Google services. Go to Documents, there it is again. Go to Photos, and…well, it’s there, but now it says ‘+You’ instead of ‘+Tony’. Go to Calendar, and…well, it’s not there–but, you get the idea.
read the rest
i find the vitriol (based not on knowledge of what Google + is for, unless they are Google execs, which I doubt) of the comments especially telling:
IsaacM says:
the good thing about Google is CHOICE. you need not use it. on the other hand, compare to adobe, install acro-reader, and the greedy idiots have programmed it to overtake all your resources, and put itself at the top of the most used programs. hope they get exactly the negative of what they want.
hi7chtrdb says:
This from the guy who has obvious distaste for Google+ and already wrote an article advising us to ‘stay away’, lol.
I am using Google+ and maintaining security is far from a nightmare. Its one click heaven.
This guy is the reason Bloggers should not pretend to be Journalists.
4m07 says:
borrows liberally? Creepy? why won’t you look into web development trends and stop talking trash. Facebook was NOT the first nor the last to use a 3 column layout. Google suggests people who are not on google, but who are in your contacts. Facebook has that service as well, but it needs to authenticate into your email in order to retrieve the contacts. What’s so damn creepy about having a link accessible from most other google service to google + , do you find the top bar menu creepy in general because other services appear on each others page as well. Oh well you are i suppose paid by fb to write a paranoid privacy article. Remember it was facebook that kept getting hacked not gmail blah